I was a customer with GTE mobile in the late 90’s. Verizon purchased GTE in the early 2000s, and I ended up being a customer with them for nearly 20 years. However, I recently moved to a part of South Carolina where their coverage was less than par. Neighbors and friends in the area recommended I switch service to AT&T, but in August I happened into a T-Mobile store near me.
In the T-Mobile store I ended up discussing my circumstances with the manager. The manager seemed very diligent, friendly, and knowledgeable, and he offered me $500 trade-ins on my existing devices and a free third line to switch service to T-Mobile. Knowing that service with T-Mobile in the area was better than Verizon I decided the offer was a good deal. Therefore, I decided to take his offer to become a T-Mobile customer for both my wife and me. The third free line was perfect for my daughter.
The T-Mobile store did not have the new phones we wanted in stock, and they had to be ordered. So, we signed all the agreements, and placed the new phones on order. We kept our existing phones and service until our new replacement phones arrived.
After our new phones arrived, we attempted to bring them to the T-Mobile store to activate our new devices. However, the store was closed, because one of the employees had tested positive for COVID-19. It was around two weeks before the store was back in service and we could transfer our service to our new devices. During this time the store manager had placed a hold on our service with T-Mobile to avoid billing during the time we were waiting to activate our new lines.
After we were finally able to activate service for our new devices, the store manager printed a mailing label and provided a box to mail my device for my $500 trade-in. My wife’s phone had a crack in the screen and was deemed ineligible for the $500 trade-in, however, my 264GB iPhone 7 plus was in like new condition. He told me to make sure all my data had transferred to my new device prior to mailing it. He also said to make sure the device was mailed within the next three days. I verified the data on my new device and placed my old device in the mail that day. I did not wait.
In October I noticed my bill was much higher than the terms agreed upon with Rylie. After several phone calls over several days and escalation to management within customer service it was finally determined that my trade-in device did not arrive on time to support the promotion I had been offered. Considering the time to order the new devices, and COVID-19 shutdown of the store I thought T-Mobile would rectify the situation. These were circumstances out of my control, and certainly T-Mobile would be willing to fix this issue. However, customer service management has yet to resolve this issue. In fact, they told me “guidelines are very strict with the promotions, and there is nothing we can do”. I asked why they had kept my device, and I would like to have it back. Customer service management told me they could not return my device to me, and they cannot honor the promotion I was promised.
So, T-Mobile took my device, never informed me there was an issue with the promotion and continues to hold my trade-in device hostage. I do not see where anyone running a respectable business can consider this practice to be acceptable.
The store manager has been trying to help correct this issue, however, my latest billing cycle still reflects charges well above what was offered to me for switching from Verizon. I have wasted a lot of my time trying to get this straightened out, and I am regretting my decision to switch service to T-Mobile. My bill also reflects that I am being charged for the third line that was supposed to be a free line.